


Defining Terms

by thewaitwasworthitlove



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewaitwasworthitlove/pseuds/thewaitwasworthitlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He follows me, and I run to give him the chase. He likes the chase most of all. So we run. We run from wars, we run from minor agents of the British government. We run from crime scenes, from Bart's.</p><p>I never asked him what we were running towards.</p><p>He wouldn't have answered anyway. He was always too busy defining things in big, bold statements. Crucial labels he holds onto with death's grip.</p><p>My friend. The only one in the world.</p><p>John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defining Terms

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! I hope you like this. I enjoyed writing it.

I vehemently hate dictionaries.

Why even bother defining things? Let's say I take an apple, call it an orange, and you nod. Later I ask you for an orange, and you give me the apple, which is really what I wanted in the first place. Haven't we just communicated to an effective end? So why does it matter? The word 'sit' has over 20 definitions. How ridiculous?

Definitions don't illuminate. They don't broaden understanding. They confine. They restrict.

They're boring. I hate boring.

John isn't boring, but he loves dictionaries and thesauruses (I've never seen a greater travesty than a thesaurus). He likes finding words and then finding other words from those words. He likes labels. He tells me for someone so intelligent, I have a limited vocabulary. 

I don't. I just don't need fifty words for "amazing." He says he needs them for his blogs. Really, I think it's because he can't resist telling a good story. I'm a good story.

There's a whole list of words I don't need:

Why don't I need them? I have a better word. One word for all of those concepts. It's more logical, more compact. One little word takes the place of a whole list. Sums up lots of things in one place, frees up my hard drive for other things. Did you know there are over 100 species of maggots? That takes space. I need the space for that kind of thing.

**Friends**

* * *

I don't need this. I don't have friends. I just have one. He follows me, and I run to give him the chase. He likes the chase most of all. So we run. We run from wars, we run from minor agents of the British government. We run from crime scenes, from Bart's.

I never asked him what we were running towards.

He wouldn't have answered anyway. He was always too busy defining things in big, bold statements. Crucial labels he holds onto with death's grip.

My friend. The only one in the world.

John.

**Sentiment**

* * *

When I was eight years old, my father went out for a walk. It was a warm evening in September. I wanted to go with them, but Father told me to stay. He took his gun and called for Redbeard. He told me they were going to flush some game, walk the grounds. Father was always restless, just like me. I remember thinking that was odd because Redbeard couldn't see anymore, all he did was sleep. I loved him anyway. It was also odd because my father wasn't happy to go out that day. He loved the outdoors like I love a good crime scene, so why was he sad?

That day, I followed them.

I still wish I hadn't.

I sat at the big oak tree for a long time. It felt like I was choking, my heart was leaping in my throat and plummeting through my feet all at once. Mycroft tried to explain. I punched him instead.

Why is it that feeling isn't an advantage? I'd asked him that. He had wiped his bloodied nose with a handkerchief and said nothing in response.

Twenty-three years later I'll look at John Watson, the man with powder burns on his fingers, like I'm seeing light for the first time. He'll look at me, and I'll understand at last. My heart will fall to the ground and shoot into my mouth at the same time. It'll tie my tongue and make me stumble. I'll tell Lestrade it's the shock talking.

Now I know. Feelings are dangerous because they grip you all at once. Terrible and wonderful and sudden.

John.

**Lazarus**

* * *

Lazarus came back from the dead.

But what did Lazarus go home to? How was it for him? A fresh start on life, yes, but what life did you get after? I suppose you're just supposed to be happy you're around to live some more, but isn't reality always more complicated? There's a miracle from God (how tedious), and... what? You wander home? Pick up the pieces?

My brother played God (his life-long dream, I'm sure of it) three times in my life.

The first two he'd leered at me, prostrate on a hospital bed, the tremors and sweat already starting to take control of my body as the last of a heroin and cocaine cocktail left it. He'd brought me back to life both times, a life I didn't really want.

It was much harder to leave the third time, even though I knew I'd be back this time. I wasn't going to actually die. I was just leaving. That was somehow worse.

I never knew what it meant to fall for someone. Then I got a literal representation. I always did learn the hard way. It hurts more than they tell you it will.

I just wanted to stay. Stay forever in the hazy ambivalence of Baker Street with John. Rest in the gaps of all the things unsaid, all the things he thought I didn't have words for. But I did. Just one.

"John." And then I was falling.

**Journey**

* * *

The days take years, each one wearing a new line on my face, a new twist in my chest. I wonder if eventually my sternum will crack open from the force of it all. One day I'll be in the middle of Jordan or Lithuania or Uganda, arguing with a smuggler, and  _crunch_  there it will be- my heart beating into the sand, flopping like a fish out of water.

Einstein had a theory of relativity (No, really he did. I'm sure of it. Maybe. I can't remember. Must have deleted it. Anyway, pretend that he did.).

Time isn't constant. Well it is, but it isn't. Perception gets in the way. Time passes in blurs and chunks and then slows down to an almost standstill. Every hour with a beautiful woman on your lap will feel shorter than a second of time when your hand is pressed on a hot stove-eye.

I think about that when they chain me to the wall. I can't really think of anything once the pain starts.

And, it doesn't stop.

Razor blades are really great for this kind of thing. The cuts feel like slicing butter, hardly any pain. After is the tricky part. They bleed and bleed and bleed. When they whip you the cuts edges blossom open and expose all of those tissues and fat and sinews.

Being stoic doesn't help either. Neither does sobbing.

Only one thing does.

"JOHN!"

**Marriage**

* * *

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

no.

His name slips out of her mouth like it had always been there, her tongue caressing it.

No.

He looks at her like she's always been calling to him.

 _No_.

I make it perfect for them. And, I bite through my tongue sometime between her vows and mine.

NO.

Molly patches me up at Baker Street. She doesn't say anything. She just cries. I'm terrified to ask why.

NO!

I have my violin to my chin, tongue still bleeding slightly. Molly gathers her things. Tom is waiting.

"He…"

" **NO**!" I scream like she has lashed my back, I arch away from her like she has. She blanches.

I find my kit under the bed. Mycroft can't play God this time. Before I hadn't cared one way or another. Now there's nothing I want more than to slip down into unconsciousness. I open the case with trembling fingers. The syringe is there. The cocaine is not. Just a note. I gasp.

_No. – JW_

"John."

**Tears**

* * *

It hasn't stopped raining for days. London is drenched. The flat is drenched. I'm drenched. Rivulets of water drip from the crack in the bathroom ceiling.

Everything smells like decay. Like wet leaves in a late autumn rain storm.

I can't leave the flat because of the weather. Every day it gets nastier and nastier. To be honest, I don't want to leave anyway. Is it a hurricane? No, impossible, not in London. Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Will it flood? Should I build an ark? Who should I gather up from the storm? Shouldn't it eventually get better?

Every day, I wake up from upstairs and wander down to the kitchen. Every day it's still raining. I hope during the night it stops. I dream of it slowing, stopping.

It doesn't.

So, every morning I wake up from John's bed. I use his tea cup for coffee.

Today, the television is on.

"It's going to be another scorcher today. Expect highs near 30. We're at pace for the hottest June on record." I rinse out the cup. I look outside.

It's summer. The sun is shining. It's warm for the morning. Just like it has been every day since John and Mary left for France. Not a drop of precipitation in days.

But it's raining. Absolutely pouring. Buckets and buckets, and it's not stopping.

Why won't it just stop?

The cup shatters against the wall.

"John."

**Blue**

* * *

Denim. Deep ocean waters. Dusk. Indigo. Navy. Royal. An officer's dress jacket.

Something Old. Something New. Something Borrowed. Something –

No.

Apparently, I need more words for this color than I thought, because nothing seems to describe John's eyes when they're drowning in tears.

I'd said Mary was pregnant. She could have been.  _Should have been_.

Gestational Trophoblastic Disease: It's a cancer that starts from what could have been placenta cells.

The baby died before it was even a baby to begin with.

"The disease has a good cure rate. She'll be fine. Emergency hysterectomy. We'll adopt." He shrugged.

Except when they open her up, they close her again almost immediately. No hysterectomy. No chemotherapy. No cure.

Pretty soon, no Mary either.

She died on a Tuesday; It was too quiet.

I wouldn't have wished this on anyone.

****

John moves back to Baker Street a month later. He chases me at crime scenes. He cries while he's upstairs. I try to play the most soothing music I can. Brahms gets tedious, but it's faintly pretty, and it makes him stop screaming in his sleep.

****

One night, months later, he comes down and sits, enjoying my music.

"Could you-," he breaks off. Doesn't matter. I know what he wants.

I nod and play "The Wedding Waltz" for the second time in my life from start to finish.

It hurts more now than it did then. At least at the wedding John had been happy. Now, he's saying goodbye.

I wonder how much of myself I can put into that piece. If I clamp down hard enough, I could make my fingers bleed, blood on the strings as they vibrate and made sound waves imbued now with atoms of myself.

When I wring out the last note, John is silent, his eyes closed, just one tear trailing its way down his face.

Before I realize it, I'm there in front of him wiping it away and stroking his face.

His eyes are open now. I kiss him. It's soft. It's unexpected. It's the first faint, warm beams of Spring sunlight.

"Sherlock." He states eyes wide, finally knowing, finally understanding that I've been here the whole time, heart beating out a tattoo just for him. Finally.  _Finally._

"John?" I asked, before pulling him up and into myself where he's belonged all along.

**Tea**

* * *

I had an ayah when I was small. She had come with my father from India after grandfather's time as a diplomat was over. She had calm hands. She told me stories about elephants and thick jungles and Gods and Goddesses. At night, she would snuggle me up and read me stories about pirates and adventurers. I would sit there listening and breathing her in.

It was the strangest thing. When I smelled her, I smelled her home, her life far away from the estate in Sussex. Warm turmeric and carom seeds, the faint whisper of cool silk, the heat of human sweat in scalding heat, and the ozone of humid monsoon rains.

When I was five she went away.

After Redbeard, I realized she had died. I wondered if that's how she went, too. A journey to a field, one last look at the sky.

Later, I could smell curry and still remember her hands soothing my back, fingering my curls. I could almost hear silk rustle, I could almost picture the rain kissing the ground as it cried for relief.

****

Tea is tannic. So is wine.

One night I drink too much of the latter and find out just how much John tastes like the former. I spend hours sweeping my tongue over him, tasting him for my benefit, teasing him for his own. I leave no stone unturned.

The crease of his thighs taste like oil of Bergamot, his neck like chamomile and honey.

I've always hated eating, but tasting John is outside of that drudgery all together.

He is  _delectable_ , and I want to catalog all of him.

"Sherlock," he sobs as I run my tongue over his shaft. "I need you, you daft bastard."

I smile, and give in. More data for later, I suppose.

And as I sink into him, my heart sings, again beating out the only rhythm it's ever known.

 _Johnjohn, Johnjohn,_  it glugs.

I reach down to stroke him lazily. The tempo of my thrusts increases, my hips are snapping against him as he frantically searches my face.

He must see something he likes (probably just the cheekbones) because he comes spectacularly, clenching around me.

And just like that, I'm there. I'm with him, for once following him.

We lay there and he draws patterns into my back. I bury my face in his neck inhaling. I'll remember his life, his story, every time I smell tea leaves or gun oil or salt.

"Have I ever told you the story about the time we invaded this drug house in Kabul."

I grunt, and he tells me a story. One hand on my back the other carding though my sweaty hair as he takes me far away from Baker Street to dusty deserts, danger around every corner, the ground begging for the kiss of the rain that never comes. I fall asleep and dream of wide open skies and arid land.

John.

**Life**

* * *

We're at the Yard when it happens. (Of course we are, anywhere else is just ridiculous). We're dealing with a double homicide. Anderson keeps telling me that it's carbon monoxide poisoning.

Wrong.

Obviously.

Lestrade watches, leaning against the squad car and rolling his eyes.

"Anderson, while I do respect your opinion," John says amicably, "I think Sherlock's just explained why that isn't so, mate. They've been dead for at least 24 hours. None of the other people in the apartments had anything more than a headache. It's doubtful that would be the case if there had been carbon monoxide spilling in for the last day. We need to look for other causes."

I nodded in agreement from behind Anderson.

"John, I know my job. I don't come to the clinic and start diagnosing people," Anderson sneers.

"You're right,  _you_ don't. And  _I_  don't tell you how to do your job, but if  _Sherlock_  came in and told me to reevaluate a diagnosis, I'd consider it and listen logically. You aren't being logical."

"Oh step off, Watson. Just because you're buggering the freak doesn't mean he's always right." Anderson turns and steps into my space. That is where he makes his mistake, I think. He continues, "And as for you, you insufferable bastard, when is it going to sink into your giant head—"

And like that he's whirled around, and his face meet with John's fist. Anderson yowls and steps back from him, his nose crooked.

"You broke my fucking nose! You're a doctor, and you broke my fucking nose."

John's voice is low and commanding as he steps towards Anderson, "You're goddamned right I did. And I'd do it again. I  _will_  if you don't lay off. My relationship is my business. We're here for a job. We do the job. We leave. If I want to go home, stretch Sherlock Holmes out on the kitchen table, and shag him into the wood grain, I bloody well will. I love him, and you're going to have deal with that. We're rather a package deal. So say something, Anderson. For the love of God, say one more goddamned thing."

I stand silent and watch John's face as he realizes what he had said. Love. He loves  _me_.

We stand there staring at each other for a moment. I'm sure the sirens are still going off around us, but I'm deaf to anything other than those words.

" _I love him."_

Lestrade laughs, "Well, I'm glad one of you finally had the bollocks to say it." He looks over his shoulder to the rest of the team, still busying themselves with the crime scene. "It was John! Time to collect, people. We'll settle at the station." Groans and cheers go up from the rest of the detectives and investigators.

Lestrade walks over and clasps me on the shoulder, "Damn, Sherlock I do wish it had been you. John was the favored horse at the races from the starting gate. All that military assertiveness, I guess. I had twenty quid ridding on you, you tosser." He leaves and wanders over to Anderson, and John comes over, his face still twisted with worry.

"You don't have to say it back, I mean, it's okay. It's fine. It's all fine." he stammers.

I just stroke his face before kissing him deeply.

"Oi, you two, lay off it. John you're going to have to straighten Anderson's nose." Anderson groans. This was going to hurt.

John pulls away, grinning wickedly, "Oh, with relish, Greg." Anderson howls when it snaps back into place.

We laugh the whole way home.

****

John's pupils blow wide as he comes deep inside me. His forehead resting against mine as our breathing and heartbeats slow. The table is uncomfortable under my back, but that's all right.

"I meant it, you know. I love you, Sherlock, reckon I always will."

"John," I smile and close my eyes, pulling him into a lazy embrace.

**Death**

* * *

Mycroft told me I couldn't have stopped it. Even if I would have been there, it would have played out this way.

John would have always wandered downstairs to a burglar.

The burglar would have always shot him.

John would have always bled and bled into the tile of the kitchen.

I would have always ripped the gun away from the man and shot him in the head without feeling anything.

Mrs. Hudson would have always called the police.

And I would have always sat there, as John told me to apply pressure to his shoulder, already trying to adjust to another piece of lead buried there.

I would have always muttered all those things the doctors told me I wasn't able to feel, all the things Mycroft had told me to push down.

I would have always told John how much he meant to me, how much I loved him as he slipped into unconsciousness.

And I would have always snarled at the paramedics. Until his breathing began to slow. Then I'd beg them to take him. To fix him. To put me back together again.

****

The waiting room was too bright, sterile. I hated it. Mycroft stayed with me through the night as I sat there, catatonic, it seemed.

"Mycroft, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, "If you need to be anywhere, I'll stay here. It's alright."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson I do appreciate it, but no. My place is here. It's always been here," he said delicately.

I snapped my head in his direction, ready to lash out and draw blood with my tongue, but the look in Mycroft's eyes stopped me. Suddenly I was eight years old under a sweeping oak tree.

It was only then that I remembered that Redbeard had been Mycroft's pet. I must have deleted that.

 _Oh, brother. Brother, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._  One day, I'll be man enough to say that out loud. That day, Mycroft will just drink his tea and nod, but as I leave he'll grip my shoulder and I'll know all is forgiven, that it was always forgiven.

It seems like eons before they let us go back to John. The nurse at the station tells us only two at a time, but there are six people in John's room. I look at Mycroft, and he just rolls his eyes, shielding me from the obvious affection he feels for John. All these people, Mycroft and me and Lestrade and Ms. Hudson and Molly and Sarah. All here for John. 

****

When John wakes up, I feel like I'm flying. Seeing that little sliver of deep blue iris and lopsided smile hits me harder than the hardest hit of cocaine ever could. We're alone. It's three in the morning. John always has the worst timing.

"Mmmm, if I knew all it took to get you to tell me you loved me was to get shot, I'd of taken care of that ages ago."

"John," I squawk.

"Save it, we'll have time later." Later has never sounded like such a gift. He pats the empty space beside him on his good side, "Come on you, up and in. Jesus, 'Lock, have you slept at all?"

I smile at the nickname and shake my head 'no.'

"Well come on then, in you go. I sleep better with you anyway."

I climb in and wrap myself as tightly as I can in between all the tubes and gauze.

He winces slightly. "Right, well, have I ever told you the story of how I fell in love with the most idiotic madman I'd ever met? It all starts with this bloke, Mike Stamford. Actually, I suppose it starts with a rather pesky bullet to the shoulder. Well _actually_ , I think it might have started before we were even born, but never mind that now. That's just a pet theory. Anyway, I walked into St. Bart's with Mike and here was this gorgeous bloke, all mile-long legs and eyes like the edge of a piece of green glass. He had the most ridiculous mop of hair, and I had to fight my fingers to stop them from running through it. And this voice, Jesus, he had this voice like God dipped in caramel and whiskey, and I wanted to drown in it, drown in him."

His voice is heavy with sleep as the painkillers from his pump kick in again.

****

I watched him as he sleeps. At some point he starts struggling and fidgeting, the nightmares still haunt him. By now an expert in the matter, I grab him tightly again and clutch him.

"Shhhhhh, John."

**Promise**

* * *

"Tell me again, Daddy."

John laughed at the little boy on his lap and tousled his dark, curly hair. Hamish Oliver Watson-Holmes. Christ, it was a mouth full when you said it all out like that, but John had been adamant when we got married:

"I want everyone in this whole sodding world to know, Sherlock. You're mine, I'm yours, the whole thing. Top to bottom, right into the ground."

I'd moaned and grumbled, but secretly I was delighted. I'd been John's for ever and ever, but legally? That added a new flavor to my fantasies.

And now (well, for several years obviously), here was Hamish. Mine biologically, but more John's child than I could have ever imagined. He was sweet and laughed and wanted to be a doctor someday.

"Father," he ordered imperiously from the cushy armchair, "Make daddy tell me the story again." Okay, maybe he was a  _little_  like me.

"Hold your horses, Hal, I'll tell you," John was wrapped around his little finger. Okay maybe he was a  _lot_ like me. 

"Uncle Mycroft says you shouldn't tell me stories. It indulges me. He's wrong."

"Yeah, well your uncle also buys you more things than any one little boy ever needed and sneaks you sweets. So you tell uncle Mycroft to stuff it."

Hamish snuggled into his dad's chest, and I watched from my post, leaned up against the entrance to the kitchen, their heads pressed together like co-conspirators, deep brown against graying blond. It's astounding that an old Chippendale could hold a whole world, but it does - mine.

"Well, once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this mad pirate and this soldier. They met and the whole world changed. I mean completely flipped upside down. The madman took the soldier on adventures all over creation. They fought monsters and saved damsels and saw the most magical places in the world."

"Did they love each other like you and Father?" Hamish asked, always observant (like me) and always chasing a love story (like John). Our Hamish. His voice was heavy; sleep was close at his heels.

"Yes, Hal, just like me and your Father. Just exactly like that."

****

After he was asleep, we picked up the toys and test tubes from the living room. I checked on my experiments, and John washed the dishes. I felt his hands on my hips before his arms wrapped around me. He rested his face against the back of my shoulder.

"This life. This life is more than I ever deserved, Sherlock. You're more than I ever deserved."

I felt my muscles relax into him. My eyes closed. This man. He was it. He was the answer to all the questions I'd never realized I had been asking my whole life long. He gave where I stood firm, I softened where he was steely. Every piece of one found its counterbalance in the other. All these years. All this time.

When we'd got married, I'd promised to love John until the end of my days and he had done the same. The whole time we both wanted to bust out laughing in front of God and everyone. The words were so hollow. We'd promised that years before with bullets and rooftops.

Words aren't everything, but this,  _this_  is.

I turned around and look down into his trusting, warm eyes. He would always follow me anywhere, never realizing that all I'd ever really chased was him.

So, how am I to define that? A lifetime of meanings and stories and love? There aren't words for that. So instead, I had looked into his eyes long ago, he had nodded, and we'd agreed on a meaning all our own.

"Sherlock."

"John."


End file.
